Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Outline. Today's students have changed so much that the old method of teaching is restricting and not challenging enough for them.
The students know how to use technology properly because they grew up with it.
Because they have grown up with this technology, they think and process information differently to predecessors - their brains may have physically been altered.
These students are called N-Gen or D-Gen or, more commonly, Digital Natives. Their parents are called Digital Immigrants.
Digital Immigrants, whilst they can learn how to use this technology, they still do not fully grasp technology like the Digital Natives do.
Because of this non-grasping of technology, Digital Immigrants are teaching students who they can not relate to, who they can not fully understand.
Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants are completely different.
Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text. They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work.
Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice. These skills are almost totally foreign to the Immigrants, who themselves learned – and so choose to teach – slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously.
The assumption that the Digital Immigrants make that their students learn the same as they did is wrong.
Immigrants believe that Natives can't learn whilst watching TV and that learning shouldn't be fun.
In order to fix the generation gap methodologies and content need to be altered